Optical fiber cables are used in a variety of fields, such as, for example, telecommunications and computer networking. Optical fiber cables often provide a number of benefits over electrical cables, such as, for example, higher bandwidth and reduced interference from external noise. To transmit data over an optical fiber cable between two electrical systems, an optical transceiver is often needed to connect each electrical system to the optical fiber cable. However, many computer systems do to include dedicated optical transceivers.
Active optical cables, which include built-in optical transceivers at both ends of the optical fiber cable, are often used instead of dedicated optical transceivers. Such active optical cables can be plugged into electrical components, such as, for example, network ports. In particular, active optical cables are often configured to have the same or similar physical dimensions to traditional electrical cables such that traditional electrical cables can be more easily replaced with active optical cables. Thus, active optical cables are often used to provide a user with an easy way to replace traditional electrical cables while gaining the benefits of optical fiber cables.
Often, a transmitter of an optical transceiver includes a laser, such as a vertical cavity surface-emitting laser (“VCSEL”), and a laser driver. A laser driver typically includes various configurable parameters that affect the current output from the laser driver into the laser. By adjusting the parameters of the laser driver, the performance of the active optical cable can likewise be adjusted. However, because an active optical cable typically includes various electrical, optical, electro-optical, and mechanical components, variability in the various components that make up an active optical cable often makes each active optical cable unique. Thus, for a group of active optical cables being manufactured, configuring all laser drivers to have the same parameter settings will often result in poor active optical cable performance. Thus, to achieve optimal data transmission with active optical cables, laser driver calibration often needs to be performed on an individual laser driver basis.
Existing techniques for calibrating laser drivers of active optical cables rely on assumptions that are often inaccurate and imprecise. For example, one technique for calibrating a laser driver is to input a signal into the laser driver and view the signal output from the laser driven by the laser driver on an oscilloscope. The parameters of the laser driver may then be adjusted until the signal displayed on the oscilloscope reaches predetermined characteristics. However, the relationship between the signal displayed on an oscilloscope and the performance of an active optical cable is often imprecise and inaccurate.
Improvements in active optical cable calibration technology, including technology that more precisely calibrates a laser driver of an active optical cable, are desirable.